Serious problems affecting your study
If you have a serious problem affecting your study, coursework, or examinations:
Undergraduate Students: please contact your Personal Tutor and the Senior Tutor, Professor Kristel Fobelets, as soon as possible. Professor Fobelets' office hours are Monday 13:00-14:00, room 714, 7th floor EEE building.
MSc students: please contact your Course Director, Course Administrator or the Postgraduate Tutor, Javier Barria.
PhD Students The Thesis Deadline Extension procedure is available to students whose progress towards the final thesis submission deadline has been affected by circumstances beyond their control. The Late case request form should be submitted before the thesis submission deadline. Please contact the Postgraduate Research Officer for advice. Please do not use MC App but keep track of any disruption(s) and evidence which will be required if you request thesis deadline extension.
If you need to speak to someone urgently about your Mental Health, you can find information at Imperial's Student Support Zone.
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- Students needing additional support - help to prevent the need for mitigation
- Extensions and Mitigating Circumstances
- Late Mitigating Circumstances claims
If you have a condition that requires additional support, then we encourage you to set-up this support at the start of the academic year.
You need to register with a medical practice during your time with us. We recommend you register with the Imperial College Health Centre unless you live far away or at home.
Setting up help to prevent the need for mitigation
New students – if you received help at school with study approaches and examinations, please contact Ms. Emma Rainbow, the Department Disabilities Officer to discuss and set-up the necessary support for your studies with us.
Continuing students – if there are any changes in your need for support that we should be aware of, e.g. special exam arrangements, additional study support, please contact Ms. Emma Rainbow, the Department Disabilities Officer.
An unexpected event, outside your control has happened and is affecting your academic performance.
In first instance, contact your personal tutor for advice.
Short term impact
Sometimes events happen that are outside your control and interfere with your performance. If it is something that is short time that prevents you to e.g. submit your coursework on time, then you many request an extension. Extensions requests are sent to the Associate Senior Tutor Prof. Zahid Durrani. Office hour is: Thursdays, 1-2 PM in Room 704, 7th Floor EEE Building.
Find out more about Extensions.
Longer term impact
Sometimes unexpected events happen that have a direct impact on your ability to sit an exam or that have a long-term impact on your ability to study, or sit assessments, which cannot be mitigated via special exam arrangements, or study support, or extensions to deadlines.
Imperial provides information to help you decide if an event can be considered a mitigating circumstance. If you think you have a case, then you can submit a mitigating circumstances claim on our department's MC App. Claims must be submitted via the Department's app, please do not use the form on the Imperial Mitigating Circumstances page. You are required to submit professional evidence for your claim. You can contact the Senior Tutor, Prof. Kristel Fobelets for more information.
What happens when you submit a mitigating circumstances claim on the app?
The MC app is monitored and the student support team: Senior Tutor, Associate Senior Tutor, Student Wellbeing Advisor and Department Disabilities Officer will meet to evaluate the claim, check the evidence and make recommendations to the Mitigating Circumstances Board (MCB). In most cases, the student support team will be able to make decisions.
Either your claim is rejected because it is deemed not a mitigating circumstance (unexpected, outside your control and having an impact on performance) or does not have acceptable evidence.
Your claim is accepted if the conditions for mitigating circumstances are met and evidence provided.
An accepted claim does not yet define what actions will be taken, it just means that we accept that something unexpected and unforeseen has happened to you. The action e.g. a fresh assessment, will be determined at the time assessment marks are submitted and will need to be approved by the MCB.
Another action can be to put special exam arrangements in place for future assessments.
A claim can also remain pending if we are awaiting evidence or if due to its complexity it needs to be decided by the MCB. The MCB comes together once a term.
- Where a student is unable to submit their claim because circumstances are ongoing and the Examination Board has not yet confirmed their end of year results, they should make their claim using the regular (on time) procedure, providing the evidence to support the lateness.
- Where a student is unable to submit their claim because circumstances are ongoing and the Board of Examiners (first Friday in July) has already made a decision on their end of year results, the student is able to submit a late claim. The final deadline for the late claim to be made is no more than 10 working days after receiving their formal end of year results. Claims submitted after this deadline will not be accepted.
- In making any claim beyond the normal 10 working day deadline (as described above), the student must provide a credible and compelling reason(s) for the late submission and independent documentary evidence to support the lateness of the claim. A lack of awareness of the procedure is unlikely to be accepted.
- If new evidence come to light following a rejected claim the late submission route maybe be followed as per above defending whether Examination Board confirmed the results or not. The late claim must clearly explain what new evidence has been submitted and why this could not have been provided at the time.
